


i would write ya a love letter

by foxkillskat



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Mild Language, Post-Time Skip, SakuAtsu, atsumu doodles hearts around omi's name and we all know it, author is in love with him anyways, kita is an absolute savage, nothing graphic, sakuatsu best friends agenda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29756235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxkillskat/pseuds/foxkillskat
Summary: Sakusa Kiyoomi expected the worst when he agreed to help Miya Atsumu move apartments.But what he didn’t expect to find —not once, not ever— was a love letter written to none other than Kita Shinsuke.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 37
Kudos: 330





	i would write ya a love letter

**Author's Note:**

> yer (least) fave redneck rascal, foxkillskat here with my love letter fer all yall. always preferred actions to words, but it seems words are all i got to offer 
> 
> what im tryin to say is: be a stupid kid, have yer stupid crushes, and write all the stupid love letters ya like knowin none of it is stupid as long as yer showin you care ☺️
> 
> enjoy the mess!!

Sakusa Kiyoomi expected the worst when he agreed to help Atsumu move apartments. He expected filthy baseboards layered in a year of grime, a collection of forgotten condom wrappers beneath the bed, and a closet like a lost and found: mismatched earrings and multi-colored scarves and mysterious panties left behind by many a late night guest. 

Kiyoomi wasn’t wrong. 

But what he didn’t expect to find —not once, not ever— was a love letter written to none other than Kita Shinsuke.

Sitting half hidden in a pile of rumpled papers and crinkled receipts and stacks of sticky notes adorned with doodles, it stood out. Crisp white cardstock called to him, curved calligraphy charmed him into picking it up, perusing the opening line. 

_To my dearest Shinsuke, my reason for living, my eternal love,_

One line is all it takes to boot him into the present. Kiyoomi’s jaw drops a good few centimeters with his heart and his knees. Frozen in place, he listens and waits for any sign of life, any noise besides his own pulse hammering away in his head. All quiet. The crew is still tied up outside, Suna likely tapping away on his phone, offering the occasional opinion to Osamu and Atsumu as they try to rearrange the couch like a puzzle piece inside the too-small moving truck. They’ll be a while.

Kiyoomi sinks into the desk chair and lifts the letter with shaking hands. He shouldn’t be doing this. This is personal. Private. A secret. But so are his feelings for Atsumu, his supposedly straight best friend.

This is some sort of joke. It has to be.

Kiyoomi scans the first paragraph —yes, there are multiple— devouring the in-depth description of the day Atsumu discovered his devotion for Kita, how all it took was a care package with umeboshi, barley tea, and a note. Kiyoomi can count on one hand the times he’s convinced Atsumu to eat umeboshi or have a drink of barley tea and, as far as notes go, this is the first he’s seen of the kind.

This is no joke.

Not only is Atsumu not straight, or at least not as straight as Kiyoomi thought, he’s in love with his high school volleyball captain. 

That’s it. That’s the punchline to Kiyoomi’s entire life. He’s the joke here, and yet he can’t stop reading, can’t fight the urge to laugh, can’t give in to the wish to cry.

The second paragraph only gets worse. The second paragraph recounts all the reasons Atsumu realized Kita was rare and radiant and rightfully revered. They don’t even make sense. Kiyoomi cleans, too; he has routines; his smiles are just as few and far between. And yet no one has ever described him this way, told him they adore every little piece of him, confessed their infatuation with what pushes him toward the fringe of normal. Weird is the word he tends to receive.

Kiyoomi isn’t laughing any longer; something else has taken hold of him. Two somethings. Envy and jealousy aren’t the same thing — Kiyoomi knows this. But he also knows he feels both to his core. He wants to be Kita and he wants to keep Atsumu, and it’s simultaneously sickening.

Words blur as he scans the third paragraph, lines upon lines explaining the eternal emotions Kita evokes. There’s no end to it. Not Atsumu’s love for Kita, not the life he imagines for them, and certainly not the ache emanating through Kiyoomi’s entire body.

He’s going to cry.

The sound of the front door has him jumping up; the voices laughing, quarreling have him hastily hiding the letter back beneath its brethren. His fingertips leave the paper the moment Atsumu enters.

“Ya wouldn’t believe what we had to do to get it to fit,” he exclaims, brighter than the bulb of lamp Kiyoomi stares into.

He blinks fast and hard until his vision clears.

“Omi-kun?”

Kiyoomi turns in slow motion, stuck in syrupy sorrow.

Atsumu’s staring, thick eyebrows knotted. “Are ya alright? Yer face is kinda red.”

“I don’t feel well,” Kiyoomi chokes out, losing it again. “I need to go home.”

“What’s wrong?” Atsumu straightens up. “Do ya need a ride? ‘Samu has his car; he could—”

“No.” Kiyoomi covers his eyes, digging his thumb and his forefinger into a temple each. “It’s just a headache. I’ll walk — need some fresh air.”

“Lemme come with ya,” Atsumu suggests, persistent as ever. “You shouldn’t be alone if yer not feelin’ well.”

“Do you not get it?” Kiyoomi snaps, hand falling away. “I want to be alone.”

“What—” Atsumu is cut off as he pushes past. 

A hand grabs on to Kiyoomi’s shoulder, pulling him right back. Typical — Atsumu is always pulling him right back. Every time he tries to leave. Every time he explodes. Every time he goes over the edge. Once a safety rope of sorts, now his hold feels like a noose around the neck.

“Let me go!” Kiyoomi shoves him away. “Leave me alone.”

Atsumu makes a face, the worst face, worse than anything Kiyoomi could have expected. And it’s the last worst thing he lets himself see before he’s barreling through the half-empty home, bursting out the door. He’s halfway to his own and a quarter from crying when he realizes he left his phone on Atsumu’s desk.

He’s not going back. He’s never going back. Not for his phone, not for his dignity, not for anything. Never — all because of that letter.

——

Kiyoomi goes back.

It’s well after midnight when he slides the spare key —his spare key— into the lock. All the lights are off inside. No one is here, party likely progressing at Atsumu’s new place. Kiyoomi can see it now: bottles in hand and boxes on the floor and the girl of the week perched atop Atsumu’s lap, throwing her head back in a laugh while he and Osamu go back and forth. Suna is there, too, one hand steady on Osamu’s shoulder and one hand on his phone, snapping photos of Hinata and Bokuto as they make fools of themselves in front of the girl’s friends, saving them and sending them off to everyone absent.

Kiyoomi thinks about that hand, the easy way Suna and Osamu exist around each other. They’re a best friends to lovers story for all time, the kind that fills him with envy. The girl’s arm around Atsumu’s neck, on the other hand, leaves him jealous.

He finds his phone on the countertop, but he doesn’t stop there. He flicks on the lights and walks the entire apartment, a shell of everything it once was. The worn leather couch where they lay in every which direction as they watched movies and shows and games is gone. The cabinets are empty, no sign of the chipped green mugs they chug coffee from following their morning runs. The desk, too, has disappeared, taking with it the letter like it never existed. Like none of it ever existed.

Could Kiyoomi clear out his head the same? And, if he did, would it feel as empty as this? As hollow and lacking?

Kiyoomi frowns as he unlocks his phone. There on the screen is a message, a note typed up in the app for him to read.

_Guess ya saw the note on my desk, huh? I woulda preferred to tell ya in person. I was goin’ to, too, I swear. I guess it doesn’t make a difference now. I’m not sorry fer what I wrote —I meant every word— but I am sorry it made ya uncomfortable. I never wanted that. I promise._

_I won’t bother ya fer the sake of keepin’ this promise. If you wanna talk, ya know where to find me._

Kiyoomi reads it three times before he allows himself to breathe, to think. He doesn’t want to talk, but he does know where to find Atsumu and, against his better judgement, his feet carry him out of the empty space and into the full night, headed toward home new and old.

——

There’s no party. There’s no Hinata and Bokuto making fools of themselves. There’s no Suna with a hand on Osamu’s shoulder or beautiful girl with her smiling friends in tow. There’s only Miya Atsumu, answering the door in rumpled sweats, shirtless and sleepy.

“Omi-kun?” His heavy-lidded eyes go wide. “Yer here?”

“Should I leave?” Kiyoomi rocks back and forth on his heels. He should. He turns to go and a hand grabs hold of his shoulder, pulling him right back.

“No—” Atsumu immediately lets go and shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “I just didn’t expect—” he stops himself same as he stopped Kiyoomi. “What time is it?”

Kiyoomi digs his phone out of his pocket and holds it out, bright light of the screen illuminating Atsumu’s face. The note, like the time, is on full display. “Three.”

Atsumu rubs the shaved part at the back of his neck, muscles in his arm tense as they move. “I was hopin’ to be a little more awake, but since yer here—” he takes a step back and waves Kiyoomi in.

Atsumu keeps that same distance, Kiyoomi notices, all the way into an unfamiliar kitchen. Empty boxes are stacked next to counters and Atsumu leans over them to reach into a cabinet. He retrieves the two chipped green mugs —their mugs— and Kiyoomi is smacked with a sense of déjà vu. Or is it nostalgia? Whatever the word, it’s the feeling when crossing paths with an old friend in a new place. It’s the sensation of finding home where it’s least expected and most wanted.

“I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi starts as Atsumu prepares the tea. “I shouldn’t have left like that. I shouldn’t have read it in the first place, but I couldn’t handle—”

“Ya don’t have to explain yerself,” Atsumu cuts him off with a half-dead smile. “I’m happy yer here.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what else to say to that listless face, to those lifeless words. He turns and scans the layout of the apartment to fill the silence. From what he can see, it’s not so different from the last. The couch fits in the corner all the same, surrounded by boxes of things which will soon reside on shelves and rest on tables and hide in drawers. He can almost see it come together, fitting like his fingers around the mug Atsumu holds out to him.

“Thanks,” he says in lieu of everything else. “Thanks for being my friend.”

“Why does it sound like yer breakin’ up with me?” Atsumu laughs into his mug, but it comes out choked, closer to a sob. “It doesn’t have to be this way, ya know? I can’t help lovin’ who I love, but that doesn’t mean we have to change.”

“I don’t care if you like men.” Kiyoomi holds the mug to his mouth, in need of a sip for a second of silence, but far too wary of being burned. “I like men, too,” he adds quietly. “I only like men.”

Atsumu stares at him for a long moment, like it was really that much of a mystery. Kiyoomi never voiced it or otherwise, but it was always less of a secret and more something he simply didn’t see the point in speaking aloud. Actions are much more meaningful anyways — at least that’s what he always says.

“But you don’t like me.” Atsumu’s words crash over Kiyoomi with action of their own and his grip falters, scalding tea splashing over his tongue. 

It hurts. It hurts his mouth and it hurts his hand where the tea trails over the edge. It hurts his heart, too, the way Atsumu looks at him like he’s lost something, like it will never be found again. All Kiyoomi can manage is a simple, “ow.”

With it, Atsumu takes the mug from his hand. His grip is awkward, fingertips dipping in the tea without even flinching. It has to hurt. Kiyoomi narrows his eyes at it as Atsumu leaves it behind on the counter to dig through the half-unboxed pantry.

“Here,” Atsumu interrupts his glare with two sugar cubes hand. 

Kiyoomi’s attention falls on reddened fingertips.

“Fer yer tongue,” Atsumu prompts.

Kiyoomi pops one in his mouth, gives it a moment to melt, to soothe. Atsumu mirrors him, trying to palliate some pain Kiyoomi doesn’t understand.

“I do like you.” The sentence slips sweet from Kiyoomi’s lips. “Our friendship doesn’t have to change.”

Atsumu huffs a laugh, but his eyes stay heavy.

Kiyoomi swallows the last of the sugar, and it sticks in his throat with the rest of his words. He has to get them out before bitter comes back; he can already feel it biting at his tongue. 

“I wish you and Kita-san the best,” he forces himself to say. “I truly do.”

Atsumu tilts his head. “Kita?”

“Your reason for living.” Bitter shows up in his sharp spit. “Your eternal love.”

Atsumu’s hand flies up over his mouth and Kiyoomi squints as he starts to shake. It takes a good few seconds to realize he’s not crying — he’s laughing, and it’s bubbling over, escaping his palm to lap at Kiyoomi’s ears.

“Is this some sort of a joke to you?” Kiyoomi questions. “You wrote that letter, did you not?”

“Yeah” —Atsumu swallows his laugh with a grin— “I wrote that crappy thing back in high school.”

Kiyoomi blinks. “But you talked about farming rice together.”

“Even back then, Kita had plans to become a farmer.” Atsumu’s smile fades as he rubs the back of his neck. “Plans with no room fer me. I gave him that letter and ya know what he did?”

Kiyoomi tilts his head.

“He gave it right back to me with an even fancier handwritten thank ya note — broke my fuckin’ heart, honestly.”

“I’m—” Kiyoomi falters. What is he? Relieved? He can’t say that. “Sorry,” he tries instead.

“Nothin’ to be sorry ‘bout.” Atsumu’s gaze falls to the floor. “I was a stupid kid writin’ stupid letters ‘cause I had a stupid crush. That’s all.”

“It’s not stupid,” Kiyoomi insists. Superfluous? Yes. Cheesy? Maybe. But stupid? Not at all. If anything, he finds it sweet.

Atsumu shrugs and takes a long sip of his tea.

“Wait,” Kiyoomi blurts out, “what was the note then? The one you thought I read?”

Atsumu immediately buries his face back in his mug.

“Tell me.”

“Wait” —Atsumu’s mug joins Kiyoomi’s on the counter, tea sloshing over the edge— “why were ya all upset ‘bout my letter to Shin?”

“I asked first,” Kiyoomi argues.

Atsumu crosses his arms. “Tell me.”

They stare at each other, competing as usual, both refusing to give in. The longer they stay like this, the more Kiyoomi grows desperate to break the stand-off, determined to win.

Daring, he’s off — racing down the unfamiliar hall and into Atsumu’s half-put-together bedroom, he leaps over the pieces of the disassembled bed frame to reach the desk. The top is clear, no stack of papers to be seen. Kiyoomi is busy rooting through drawers by the time Atsumu catches up.

There’s a hand on Kiyoomi’s shoulder, pulling him right back. Typical.

When he tries to shrug it off, an arm wraps around his waist and a chest presses against his spine — Atsumu’s arm, Atsumu’s chest, Atsumu’s hand sliding from his shoulder up the side of his neck. Not typical. Not typical at all.

“Does this make ya uncomfortable?” Atsumu’s words course through him.

Kiyoomi looks down at the arm around his waist, at his hands half in the drawer, at the breath he’s holding in his expanded rib cage. “No.” He slides it shut with a long exhale. “Not at all.”

Atsumu’s hold on him tightens, but it doesn’t feel like rope, noose or otherwise. It’s familiar, like the chipped edge of a green mug pressed to his lips, like the worn leather of an old couch beneath his fingertips. It’s new, too, unexpected and exciting all in one. Kiyoomi’s lost and found once more.

“Kiyoomi,” Atsumu starts, fingers spreading into him, “has my whole heart.”

Kiyoomi’s lips part.

“That’s what the sticky note said.” Atsumu’s hair tickles his neck and Kiyoomi leans into it. 

“That’s all?”

“I also doodled some hearts on it.” Atsumu’s laugh lights up. “They were kinda lumpy ‘cause I drew ‘em with my left hand when I was on the phone with ‘Samu.”

“What—” Kiyoomi laughs, too, Atsumu holding him as it moves through him, through them. “And here I thought you wrote me a love letter.”

“I would write ya a love letter” —Atsumu’s fingers thread into his hair at the roots, twisting and tugging on his heartstrings— “but aren’t ya always sayin’ actions are what’s important?”

Kiyoomi did say that. He meant it, too, and even though he does envy those who are written of, eternally immortalized in reasons and rhyme, even though he is jealous anyone was the recipient of anything of the sort from Atsumu, this is so much better. This is the best he could have never expected.

The tip of Atsumu’s nose trails a path along Kiyoomi’s exposed neck at the edge of his shirt. His breath is warm. Hot, even. Enough to send a shiver up Kiyoomi’s spine. 

“What are you doing?” he asks. 

“I wanna show you how I feel, Omi-kun.” Atsumu’s fingers begin to tap, dancing on Kiyoomi’s scalp the same as they do on the surface of the volleyball as he plans out his serve, calculating his next move with careful caution.

“Show me your worst,” Kiyoomi challenges.

“You’ve already seen that.” Atsumu presses a kiss to the side of Kiyoomi’s neck. “From here on out, only the best fer my eternal love” —he gives another— “my reason fer livin’” —and another— “my dearest Kiyoomi.”

There it is again: the urge to cry. But the thought of tears of relief and joy leave Kiyoomi laughing instead, making light of the joke of his life. 

He twists back to meet Atsumu, lips landing on his forehead soft and sweet in a satisfying kiss. “I’ll expect nothing less” —he gives another— “from Atsumu who” —and another— “has my whole heart.”


End file.
